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Jesus
on Trial
INTRODUCTION
The topic is Jesus on
trial. Let us bear in mind
that there was a reason for this trial. The rulers were now at a stage of
absolute determination to kill Jesus. To do that, they had to first arrest
him and try him. We must understand therefore, that the trial would
clearly be a farce; for the rulers and the chief priests had determined
the outcome before the trial ever began.
One writer has said that this reminded him of vigilante justice,
where the victim would be told that they would give him a fair trial and
then hang him. The only reason that
they did not want to kill Jesus during the time of the feast, was because
they were afraid that the nationalistic and fervently religious crowds
would riot. They knew there were some among the crows, who thought that
Jesus was the expected Messiah. As it turned out
however, they did end up killing Jesus on the Feast day.
This was exactly as the Scriptures had predicted. Jesus had been anointed
for his burial earlier. Then
a willing Judas had been used by a self deceived Satan to carry out the
plan of God, which had called for the spotless Lamb of God to be
slain for the sins of the world. Jesus had used the
Passover bread to picture his broken body, and the wine to picture the
blood of the Lamb of God, which would take away the sins of the world. As events moved toward
Jesus’ trial, abuse, and crucifixion, He recoiled from the spiritual
horror of being made sin, and in deep distress prayed to his Father. It is clear from Jesus
prayer when he suffered unbelievable agony in Gethsemane, that there was
no other way to salvation. His
death was necessary and therefore his prayer was not answered. Jesus knew that there
was no other way to save mankind and we should understand that ourselves.
There is only one way to be saved. When the treacherous
disciple Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss of friendship, Jesus could have
destroyed all those who had come to arrest him, but he calmly and with a
determined purpose went along, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled. At this stage Jesus was
completely forsaken, his disciples having fled to save themselves from
arrest. The temple guards and
soldiers had been sent to arrest Jesus by men who had pretended to the
people, that they were looking for the Messiah and would welcome him when
he arrived. But despite the
undeniable evidence that Jesus was the Messiah, they refused to
impartially examining his credentials, determining instead to destroy him.
His preaching of repentance, and his exhortation that they live a
holy life and redirect their affections and goals to the spiritual, made
them set themselves completely against him. Here stood Jesus,
completely in command, completely alone, completely reconciled to the Old
Testament predictions about the Suffering Servant of Jehovah. He showed
the utmost submission to the Scriptures, willing to do everything
necessary, so that every word of God would be upheld and never fall to the
ground. Jesus was fixed in his
purpose, and the enemies of God were fixed in theirs’. We would
naturally expect that this trial would break the Law of the land, and the
Law of God in almost every respect. The most obvious point
to be made is that, Jesus’ being on trial relates directly to our
Christian walk in the sense; if He was tried and killed unjustly, then we
too can expect the same treatment from the world.
They hated him, and they will hate us too.
The same strategies/techniques employed to judge Jesus can and will
be extended to us. No quarter
will be given. Bribery, lies,
deception, corruption, and more will be used to rid the world of Christ
and God. We need to take a page
from Christ’s response. To
his accusers, he remained silent, not defending himself, or answering to
their absurd charges, for He knew their hearts.
They would not hear the truth then, as they would not hear and
accept it, even though he was in the synagogue preaching just a few days
before. To a man like Pilate,
who knew of the truth, it really did not suit his interest to probe too
much in matters leading to his salvation, but Jesus was somewhat open to
him, in terms of answering questions.
Perhaps Jesus was hoping to convince him that the life he was
leading wasn’t the right one. However, the fact
remains the truth has always rested with Christ.
Life has always been with Christ.
To reject him will earn nothing but God’s judgment for the
treatment we have given Him. Two men were on trial
that day. Jesus, and Peter. Both
were on trial before men and God. Peter
also was on trial, tested by the pressures on him to see what he was
really made of. At a later point in time, the roles will be reversed. It will be Jesus who will be the judge, and the priests, council members, and everyone else that will be judged, and judged righteously. The personal trial of
Jesus related to his popularity with the people vis a vis that of the
religious leadership. It also
came from the authority, which he exercised over them in his teachings,
and interpretations of the scriptures. The trial introduced the
nature of the sacrifice that Jesus must endure in order to redeem man back
to God. This trial was just one of the many trials that Jesus must go
through in order to accomplish His mission. His mission, or task in the work given to Him by God, was clearly laid out. Jesus knew what He had to do, and what was expected of Him. Since He was the only one capable of performing this particular task, he had to submit himself and suffer afflictions. Peter on the other hand,
went through a slightly different trial.
It is the kind of trial that we as believers will go through.
From the time Peter was in the garden, his trial dealt with his
devotion and loyalty to Jesus. At
the times of sheer peril, Peter and all of His disciples, all those
closest to Jesus left Him, abandoned Him. But then, bolstering up
some courage, Peter followed the guards and Jesus.
Another test of Peter’s devotion, loyalty and perhaps even his
understanding of the doctrines that Jesus had taught them loomed, (this
would lead to a stronger, thorough understanding of the relationship
between God, man, and personal preservation; spiritually and carnally)
then came the test and he denied Jesus three times in the courtyard of
Caiaphas. There is some mention of
the previous High Priest Annas, who was dismissed by Pilate’s
predecessor, as being the man behind some of the actions of the religious
leaders or the power behind the throne.
Needless to say, the men who brought trials before these two men,
still did not understand that they were dealing with God and that God’s
Will, will and must be done. There existed certain
rules to govern judicial procedures.
So too in Jesus’ time there were rules to govern such attempts at
justice. These laws or rules
were broken at every point in order to get a guilty verdict concerning
Jesus. This was never achieved. All that really occurred was that the punishment for a guilty verdict was given. According to Jewish law there were many illegalities in Jesus’ trial. Many Jewish laws were broken. In
Jewish law, all criminal trials must begin and end in the daylight; this
one was held at night. In Jewish law, criminal cases could not be
tried during the Passover season but this one was held breaking all the
rules. In
Jewish law, only a not guilty verdict could be issued on the day of
the trial; guilty verdicts had to wait one night to allow time for
feelings of mercy to arise. In Jewish law, only decisions made in the
official meeting place of the Sanhedrin were valid; this trial took place
in the personal home of Caiaphas. In
Jewish law, all evidence had to be guaranteed by two witnesses separately
examined and not having contact with each other; this testimony was
engineered and contradictory. In
Jewish law, perjury was punishable by death; obviously, these false
witnesses were
not so punished. In
Jewish law, the trial always began by bringing forth evidence for the
innocence of the accused, before any evidence of guilt was presented.
Such is the background for our text. THE
TEXT
Verse
55. There
are people in the world that do wrong, and do not realize the consequence
of such actions. Then as seen here,
there are individuals who are fully aware of their actions and have fully
taken sin and iniquity to its ultimate end.
The leadership of the priesthood, who were to be God’s
representatives to shepherd his people ruled unjustly and were now in fact
shepherds for Satan. This can
be considered harsh criticism, but clearly they did not heed the words or
works of Christ and they actively plotted against him, to murder him. What then can be said
of them? They sought out witnesses against Jesus to condemn him.
By ‘sought’, it is meant that they looked for false
witnesses against Jesus. They
were aware of their flimsy case against Him and that in order to get the
judgment of death, and bring him before Pilate, they must get some
significant charge brought against Him. The Bible indicates
that they were not able to find any, for there was never any to be found. Note that they had first seized him, and now were looking around for evidence. This is what happens when ringleaders in a crime, who want to overthrow justice, who are corrupt, try to do evil to the people of God. They are forced into extremes, which they would have avoided if they had not bee under the control of the insanity caused by wickedness. Verse
56. There
were many that came to witness at the trial.
The Bible makes no note of any individual coming to provide a
witness for Jesus. He was
“by himself”, that is to say, that on trial was Jesus and God. On the other hand, the
opposition had no trouble finding false witnesses.
They employed certain tactics as bribery, and allowed people with
unrighteous motivations to speak. What
would cause so many people to come forward in this manner?
Did they hear the words of Jesus before, and it convicted them, and
still yet let the opportunity for repentance turn to contempt. Were they just completely engulfed by sin and iniquity that
were devoid of all other holy reasoning? Who is to know! The fact remains that their witness was false, and so were they. The other dimension of
the testimonies given was that none seemed to agree with any other.
The High Priest and the council could not find any real charge to
lay on Jesus, and now the false witnesses were not even in agreement. In order to convict
anyone, they must have the agreement of two or more witnesses on the same
matter, which they could not obtain, even though they tried. In all of this Jesus
remained silent for he knew their reports were false, and that only
bolstered his resolve and position previously stated. The leadership was
corrupt. Note that Jesus could have easily defended himself, but also remember that He was, as Isaiah 53:7 put it, to be: “led
as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth”. It would also have made void Psalm 71:11 and other prophecies about the suffering of Messiah. Verse 57. Since each witness coming in wasn’t producing any results, i.e. no agreement in testimonies, Matthew records (26:10) that they gave one final attempt, and brought in two witnesses at the same time to obtain an agreed testimony against Christ. This too failed. They spoke of the same situation, but the words and details of the events were different. There was still no agreement in what they said. Verse
58. The
discourse from the two witnesses is outlined in this particular portion of
passage. We heard him say, I
will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I
will build another made without hands – It
should be pointed out that certain aspects of this testimony was
peculiar. They had to return
to the start of Jesus’ ministry to get any statement they might be
“injurious”. This calls
into question the validity of such a testimony, as with time, the
perceptions and memory of the situation can erode one’s memory. His words after this
situation had increased with boldness and yet nothing could be mentioned
about anything there. Christ’s
words in that situation were, "Destroy this temple, and in three
days I will raise it up," and if careful attention was paid, then
they would realize that He spoke about his own body, not the actual
Temple, especially since no direct motion was made to it.
With a little hindsight, we can now as they would have seen upon
hearing the rumours that Jesus’ body was gone, conclude that the Lord's
words referred to His death by their hands and His resurrection by His
own. Actually they knew that
Jesus did not mean that he would destroy the physical Temple, for after
his death they noted that he had said that he would be raised after three
days and therefore they put a guard on his tomb. We must never think that these people were ignorant or stupid, and it is certain that the leaders did not believe the meaning given that he would destroy and rebuild the Temple in three days. Verse 59. Despite the fact that the false witnesses report only consisted of a few of Jesus’ words, they could not agree. Their memory was obviously not too good and the details did not mesh. Clearly, the case was falling apart. Verse 60. Here the High Priest did something quite illegal, for he tried to save the occasion by attempting to get the silent Jesus to incriminate himself. The case against Jesus had obviously failed and so the High Priest tried to get Jesus to testify against himself. He was of course pretending that he was offering justice and fair play, when in fact he really wanted to accuse him. This of course was against Jewish law. Verse 61. The High Priest in a move of desperation, in the face of Jesus' silence, put him under the most solemn of oaths, asking him according to Matthew: “ Are you the
Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?”. Note that this was a
clear and direct question put to a man under the most solemn oath.
The High Priest asked Jesus “ Are you the Son of God?” such a
demand made it impossible for Jesus legally not to answer. Luke 22 tells us that before Jesus gave His direct answer, he protested with dignity against the clear indication, that the rulers had prejudged his case and were now unfairly using a procedure that they should not really have used. He said: “ If I tell you, ye
will not believe: And if I also ask you,
ye will not answer me, nor let me go. Hereafter shall the
Son of Man sit on the right hand of the power of God. Then said they all,
Art thou then the Son of God? And
he said unto them, Ye say that I am.” Verse
62. The
Jews had used a title for God and applied it to Christ, and Christ then
accepted this and linked this title to his second coming. (Matthew 26:64).
He addressed the High Priest personally telling him what his own destiny
would be. He really told the
High Priest that he had answered his own question. We can read the
description of this Second Coming in Revelation 19. It is absolutely clear that Jesus was claiming to be the Messiah and the Son of God. The Jews knew this. They spoke the same language as Jesus and knew all the idioms and expressions of their language. It is therefore incredible that some people claim that Jesus never claimed to be the Son of God. But the Jewish rulers knew better than these people who don't know the language as well as they did. Verse
63-64. The
High Priest then made the hypocritical gesture of tearing his clothes,
prejudging the case by calling what Jesus said blasphemy and cutting off
the possibility of further witnesses. The correct procedure
would have been for the people to have voted independently, and then as
president of the court, he would have voted last.
But this hypocrite, when he heard what he wanted to hear, pretended
to be outraged. Note that Jesus would
probably have turned the tables on the rulers, but he went voluntarily to
his death. He knew that his
doom was sealed when he replied as he did. Of course the
illegalities were continued for all restraint was abandoned and they began
to spit on him, cover his face, hit him, and generally abused him.
All their hatred, venom and jealousy was poured out on him. But that this simply fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah 50: 6. In every instance things were going along as the plan of God had laid down. CHAPTER
15
Verse 1.
Since the High Priests, scribes
and members of the Sanhedrin were all united in their intent to kill Jesus
as quickly as possible, they met for trial very early in the morning.
The Passover time was rapidly approaching.
We are not told what
happened to Jesus in the few hours before his illegal, farcical trial
before the Priests and his appearance before Pilate the next morning. But
we know that after his ill treatment some hours earlier he must have
looked pretty miserable. Now the Jewish rulers had
to put together a charge that the Roman ruler Pilate would agree was
grounds for execution. They had condemned Jesus
for blasphemy based on the fact that he had claimed to be God.
But the Romans could not care less about that kind of charge, and
therefore the Sanhedrin Council would have to meet and come up with some
charge that the Romans would consider serious.
The charge would have to come from the official leaders of the
nation. Note that they would have
to accuse Jesus of taking a political stand against Rome, doing exactly
what he had consistently refused to do.
And this is what they did. They
did not really care about whether or not these charges were true.
They simply wanted Jesus dead no matter what. Remember too that they
wanted to move quickly because they still feared an uproar among the
people. We should note that when
we evil people plan to do something that is evil, they are very
industrious and energetic, and that this is contrary to the general
attitude of believers, who almost always are slow, backward, and lazy when
they are doing the work of God. No
wonder the Bible always calls on Christians not to sleep and generally
accuses them of being sluggards. Note also that they bound
Jesus, spat on Him, buffeted, and physically abused Him. He was led
through the streets of Jerusalem in an undignified procession, to expose
him to the scorn and contempt of the people.
He must have looked somewhat miserable indeed. They delivered him to Pilate, the Roman Governor, symbolically signifying that they had delivered the man who came to give the kingdom of God to them over to the Gentiles. They have given the crown of Israel over to those that had placed them in bondage. What a sight! What stupidity! Verse 2.
Pilate, the Roman governor at the
time, would certainly have heard about Jesus, since his spies
would have reported the stories concerning him, and the antagonism
between Jesus and the Sanhedrin which had been brewing for sometime.
Pilate would not really
have cared about what was going on at that level in Israel, except for the
fact that he wanted harmony in the area he was supervising, and he knew
that this situation might become volatile, since religious disagreements
could easily stir the people up for revolt.
Pilate would not want this to happen. The Sanhedrin cooked up
three charges, according to Luke. They first charged Jesus
with perverting the nation, that is, staring up troublemakers, creating
riots and dissension. Second, was that he had
forbidden the payment of tribute or taxes to Rome. Third was a charge that
he wanted to be king instead of Caesar. Obviously Pilate focused
on the last charge that Jesus was king of the Jews, and he asked Jesus
directly whether or not he was the king of the Jews.
John tells us that Jesus informed Pilate in John 18:36,37 that his
Kingdom was not of this world and therefore his servants would not be
fighting the Romans. He was
no threat to Rome at all. Pilate seemed to have understood this and as a result the chief Priests counter punched, accusing Jesus of many things. Jesus wisely just kept silent. Pilate, who was cruel and rapacious but no fool, realized that it was because of envy that the Jews had brought Jesus to him. The charges were obviously trumped up charges. Verse
12. Pilate
now faced the clamor of the crowd that the Jewish rulers had assembled.
Jesus' refusal to defend himself, gave Pilate no grounds to free
him, even though he knew that Jesus was innocent, and that it was the
enmity and jealousy of the priests that had brought him to trial. Pilate should simply have
released Jesus, but in the face of the outrageous behaviour of the rulers
and the crowd, Pilate tried to get into a political bargaining.
He offered to released Jesus. Pilate chose to release a
known murderer, who had been caught in the act of committing a crime.
He chose to kill in an innocent man, while letting a known murderer
free. All that were present at
that trial were corrupt. The
corrupt Pilate was astonished at the desire of the people to crucify Jesus
and release Barabbas, for he could not see any rationale for this type of
behaviour. When people are caught up
in sin they are not rational. Sin
simply is designed to move us away from God and lead us to our
destruction, and many they are that follow that path. Pilate offered a way out for the people. He gave them the chance to allow him to scourge Jesus and then release him. Note that he did not scourge the other two thieves condemned to crucifixion. Verse 13. The crowd simply shouted for the crucifixion of Jesus. It would seem that those people were hired by the rulers for the occasion and were simply earning their keep. Verse 14. John tells us that Pilate was afraid of Jesus but that he was also afraid of the crowd. He was trying to please two sets of people, and opted for the path away from justice. He was a believer in political compromise. So when the crowd kept
screaming for Jesus’ blood he was ready to oblige, after some pitiful
protest. Verse 15.
Pilate was willing to appease the
noisy and tumultuous mob, and so released Jesus to the mob to do with him
as they saw fit.
He decided to scourge Jesus, that is, beating him with long leather cords, that had in them embedded bits of bone and iron. This would tear off the skin of the prisoner’s back and cut it open, creating a bloody mess. CONCLUSION What will you do with
Jesus? Will you shout with the
crowds of this world, and abuse, mock, shame, and kill the innocent One,
who came from glory to shed his blood for your sins? Would you do harshly to
him, and hate him instead of loving him? Do you love honesty or do
you love deceit? Is your attitude one of compromise, and a covering up of
the truth? Do you want to be with the powerful and popular of the world
and stand against the poor and innocent? Do not be part of the iniquity of this world. God will be displeased. There is only way to be saved. Do not crucify Jesus afresh and count his blood an unworthy thing.
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